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Sunday, July 31, 2011

Dealing with Self-Sabotage

(Originally posted on my blog "The Irony of the Last 10 Pounds" on the Weight Watchers website.)
 
On July 16th, I hit my lowest weight since starting Weight Watchers on August 1, 2009. This accomplishment left me with 8 pounds to lose til my goal weight.

Unfortunately, after this amazing success, the self-sabotage crept in and I started eating whatever, not tracking, "hiding out" (not actively participating in a challenge or posting to my blog or even posting on Facebook or Twitter) and letting my "inner brat" make the decisions. The results were a 1 pound gain at the weigh-in on 7/23 and a 1.8 pound gain on 7/30.

I was in a mental tail spin and I knew that if I didn't "snap out of it" I'd gain even more and get further and further away from my goal weight and ultimately Lifetime Membership at Weight Watchers.

I remembered a wonderful pamphlet called "Ship It" by Seth Godin that is a guided workbook to work through any goal for your life. I grabbed a copy and started the work of planning for hitting my goal of Lifetime Weight Watchers Membership by October 29, 2011.

Part of the work was looking at 10 things to add to support my success in reaching my goal. Fortunately, I didn't have to think very hard to come up with most of the 10 items.

Here are my 10 items:
1. Track every day.
2. Plan food and activity and actually follow the plan
3. Find fun ways to add "new" to my activity
4. Blog daily on WW Website and post blog entry on personal blog.
5. Return to participating in the 10 Pesky Pounds by End of Summer Weight Watchers Challenge
6. Chew lots of gum.
7. Hit 5 servings of fruits/veg
8. Tell the "inner brat" to "SHUT IT!"
9. Listen more @ Weight Watchers meetings. Be humble.
10. Buy GI Jane on iTunes and watch it to be inspired.

It's not a coincidence that a few of the items on the list are connected to Weight Watchers activities. The program does work. Go figure! :-)

I'm looking forward to seeing how these 10 things contribute to a successful weigh-in on Saturday 8/6.

"See you" in tomorow's blog post.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Survive or Evolve?

This morning the alarm went off and I was ready to say in bed instead of heading to the gym for a workout. "The voice" in my head had a perfectly logical argument for sleeping in another hour and skipping the workout.

Thankfully, I asked myself, "Do I want to merely survive or do I want to evolve?"

I chose to evolve, get out of bed and have a kick-ass workout.

This survive/evolve question came from a presentation months ago by a SVP at work, Phil Goswitz. His presentation was entitled "Satellites and Marathons." Not only did Phil talk about satellites but also about how approaching training for marathons can be applied to ones life.

He mentioned that each morning when you are going to train, you can chose to stay in bed which is a survival mechanism or you can chose to evolve get out of bed and do the work.

At the time of the presentation I didn't know how it would apply to my life. Today, I applied this approach in my life and I'm forever grateful to Phil for helping me stick to my plan of losing the last 9.4 pounds to hit my goal weight of 160.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

What Is Your Passion? And What Are You Doing About It?

It's funny how "life" gets in the way of "best laid plans."

Weeks ago, I "pledged" to participate in the "Self Reliance" writing challenge to do daily blog posts or Tweets based on daily prompts: (http://ralphwaldoemerson.me/prompts)

Today, is the second time I've made a blog entry in this 30-day challenge. Instead of beating myself up for "failing" to do the challenge 100% I'm moving forward and writing anyway.

Today's prompt gives the reader the challenge to think about your #1 passion and then do something related to that passion every day. Dance is my numero uno passion. What is so exciting is that when I've looked at the past week or even the past few months, I've already incorporated more dance into my life thanks to a wonderful series of seemingly random events.

Back in May of 2011, I began teaching line dancing at the Gardena Elks Lodge on Tuesday nights. My students are wonderful and I'm having a blast teaching and finding fun new line dances to teach. Did you know there is a line dance called the Sanctified Slide? Check out my "Line Dancing" page on my blog for more details on this dance and many more.

2 weeks ago I "thought outside of the box" and discovered the excellent Zumba class schedule at the Gold's Gym in Hawthorne. The wonderful staff at my home gym in downtown Long Beach hooked me up and I can attend these classes after work when I can't make it on time to a Zumba class at my home gym.

The line dance classes and Zumba classes take care of dancing a few days a week. The bigger challenge for me is how I will incorporate dance into every day. It will be fun figuring out how to get creative with this.

Do you have any ideas? Comment them below. I'd love to hear them.

And more importantly, what are you doing every day with your passion? Share that as well.